Reid visits troops in Afghanistan
Reid visits troops in Afghanistan
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Three US soldiers were killed this morning when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb north-west of the capital, raising the number of Americans killed in the Baghdad area to eight this weekend. |  |
Monday, 24, Apr 2006 12:00
Defence secretary John Reid has said that British troops serving in Afghanistan face a "complex and dangerous mission" as he prepares to meet with military personnel currently based there.
Dr Reid is due to travel to the lawless Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where over 3,000 British troops are being deployed as part of a fight against Taliban insurgency and the country's booming narcotics trade.
Speaking about the role that British soldiers will play under the command of the new Nato-led force in Afghanistan, the defence secretary said that UK troops would primarily be involved in a reconstruction mission aimed at helping the Afghan government to establish security, democracy and economic growth.
But he warned that UK troops would face opposition from terrorists intent on undermining reconstruction efforts.
"Although our mission to Afghanistan is primarily reconstruction, it is a complex and dangerous mission because the terrorists will want to destroy the economy and the legitimate trade and the government that we are helping to build up," Dr Reid told the Today programme.
In an interview conducted at the Kandahar air base, the defence secretary stressed that the September 11th attack on the United States was the chief reason behind the deployment, claiming that the "biggest terrorist attack in history was launched by al-Qaeda under the protection of the Taliban."
The defence secretary said that while British troops would not play a direct role in a separate US-led anti-terrorism mission in Afghanistan, UK soldiers might be faced with the task of helping to root out suspected terrorists.
"Our mission is not counter-terrorism but one of the tasks that we may have to accomplish in order to achieve our strategic mission will be to defend our own troops and the people we're here to defend and to pre-empt on occasions terrorist attacks on us," said Dr Reid.
Meanwhile, Afghan officials have confirmed that a cargo plane today crashed into houses while trying to land at an airfield used by US troops in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand.
The cause of the crash, which reportedly killed a child and injured six others on the ground, is currently unknown.